Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 2/100 ZF

My usage

I use short tele lens as my main lens when I'm taking nature photographs. I use it to all kind of purposes from close-ups to lanscapes. Typically in everything else than landscape photography the foreground and background can not be sharp, therefore it's very important that bokeh is good quality.

For actual macro shots I prefer to use Canon EF180mm f/3.5 L USM since it offers more working distance and more magnification.

Image quality

2008-03-01: In order to give final verdict more photographs are needed to be taken. This section is under construction.

Sharpness and Contrast

Based on photos I have taken I have no reason to doubt that the measured MTF charts would not be as Zeiss has them measured. Performance is perfect even wide open with 1DmkIII. Also this lens will keep delivering once I update to full frame camera, according to Lloyd Chambers it resolves Nikon D3x 24.4Mpix sensor in extreme corner of frame at f/2 easily.

According to Zeiss (underline parts different than in Canon's MTFs): "The Modulation Transfer (MTF) as a function of image height (u) and slit orientation (sagittal, tangential) has been measured with white light at spatial frequencies of R = 10, 20 and 40 cycles/mm."

Bokeh

Generally bokeh is very "Zeiss"-like in this lens; smooth and lively at same time.

XXX highlight shapes - in corners "cateye" or not
XXX highlight shapes - is the highlight circle having strong edges or soft edges

Optically worst fault in this lens is LoCA (Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration) in bokeh. It's not as bad as with Canon EF85L f/1.2 L USM mkII, but the magenta and greed fringes outside focal plane may be very visible and impossible to remove. If you shoot subjects which have tendency to produce LoCA (e.g. photographing cars with lot of chrome, which is in bokeh) NOTICE! LoCA exists only in bokeh, not in focal plane!

Lens flare

This lens handles back light situations very well - I have no hesitations to shoot at any conditions with this lens, I can have confidence that Makro-Planar delivers.

When I have taken night photos, in which strong light sources are in frame, I have not seen any flaring. Practically this lens is flare free. Also I have not detected any sort of veiling flare.

Vignetting and distortion

Wide open lens has pretty strong vignetting. It's less serious at high magnifications, but it's pretty bad at infinity. However in practice landscapes are not shoot at f/2, but this limits usage of the lens in some applications, for example photographing stars. Vignetting in almost gone by f/4.

I have not been able to notice any distortion when shooting with the lens. This matches well with the distortion graphs Zeiss has published.

Micro contrast

Textures etc.

Close ups/macro image quality

2008-03-01: not yet tested, have to wait until spring...

According to Zeiss (underline parts different than in Canon's MTFs): "The Modulation Transfer (MTF) as a function of image height (u) and slit orientation (sagittal, tangential) has been measured with white light at spatial frequencies of R = 10, 20 and 40 cycles/mm."

Handling and usage

Focusing from infinity to 0.44 meter is about 360 degrees rotation. Manual focus feeling is very tight and in some situations I would prefer to have less resistance when turning the manual focus ring. Manual focusing is very accurate and it's very easy to achieve accurate focus with live view. For Canon users the focus ring also turns into wrong direction; e.g. all the way to clockwise is infinity and not minimum focus distance

Aperture is can be selected 1/2 stop intervals. When using viewfinder and manually stopping down it's easy to calculate "clicks" from wide open to determinen the aperture into which lens is stopped down. Only problem with setting aperture is that the lens barrel is quite wide (wider than aperture ring) and aperture ring is between lens barrel and camera and in some situations it wasn't easy to adjust aperture, specially with gloves.

Lens hood protects front lens element very well physically and quite well from sun and other light sources which could cause flares or decreased contrast if allowed to shine to front lens element. Zeiss lens caps are not very good to operate and I have replaced them with Nikon lens caps with have better design.

Polarizer is quite difficult to operate when hood is attached to lens. Hood protects filter quite well from sun and other light sources. However when filter is used 1/3 of it's exposed to lights source if light is coming from angle that it barely reaches outer 1mm from the front lens element.

Build quality and basics

Build quality is as good as I could imagine, from different planet than Canon lenses. Lens hood has bajonet and lens hood is made of metal, not plastic. Lens hood fits very well to lens and can be reversed.

Lens dimensions with Nikon to EOS adapter and lens caps are: diameter 76mm, length 116mm, weight 720g. Dimensions when including hood: diameter 82mm, length 162mm and weight 780g. Length from EOS lens mount with hood is between 145mm and 199mm. This lens isn't internal focusing and therefore extends when focused closer. Lens extends about 44mm when focused to minimum focus distance 0.44m. Lens uses weird filter size of 67mm, I don't use any other filter than Circular Polarizers and I didn't even have this size yet.

Minimum aperture is f/22. Aperture has 9 blades and aperture remains very round even at f/22. Lens has 9 elements which are in 8 groups. Actual focal length is 97.5mm. Minimum focus distance is 0.44m, which results 1:2 magnification and full frame (36mm x 24mm) coverage of 72mm x 48mm. On 1.3x crop camera coverage is 55mm x 37mm and in 1.6x crop 45mm x 30mm.

Summary

Pros

+ Sharpness, microcontrast, contrast and colors are excellent
+ Stopping down is needed only to increase depth of field, contrast increases a little bit at f/2.8, but starts to decrease at f/5.6-8 depending pixel size of camera
+ Build quality and all metal construction
+ Lens performs very well in backlight situations

Cons

- Aperture ring is not easiest to use since it's between camera body and wide lens barrel
- Lens extends when focused
-
-

See photos in my picturebank taken with this lens.

Photography links (Link to parent category)

Manufacturers

Canon
Pentax
Nikon
Sigma
Canon - brochures

eStores

AC- FOTO (Germany)
TechnikDirekt (Germany)
New York Camera (Germany)

Finnish Stores

Kuva Lenita (Raahe)
MR-kamera, käytetyt laitteet (Helsinki)
Rajala Camera Pro Shop (Tampere, Helsinki)
Kallioniemi / Superkuva (Tampere)

General

Photo.net
Fred Miranda
Luminous Landscape
Naturfotograf
Digicamera.net (in Finnish)
Steves digicameras
Thom Hogan
Dpreview - Canon SLR talk
Dpreview - Canon SLR Lens talk
Rob Galbraith - D30/D60/10D forum
Rob Galbraith
Pekka Saarinen
Belgium digital
Lone Star Digital
Matti Valve lähikuvaustietoa (in Finnish)
Dpreview
Blog from Eskelinen-Haili-Helenius
Juza Nature Photography

Galleries

Landscape

Humans

Nature

Pekka Saarinen

Techniques

The Canon Digital Learning Center
Calculators

Depth of field (DOF) calculators

DOFMaster - Online Depth of Field Calculator

Other calculators

FOV Calculator

Flash

Strobist (blog): Lightning 101

Cambridge in colour - Hyperfocal distance
Cambridge in colour - Depth of field
Cambridge in colour - Diffraction
Cambridge in colour - Night photography

Nature

Metsähallitus
Pirkanmaan virkistysalueyhdistys r.y.
Birgitan polun kartta
Luontotupa - Kuvia Suomesta!

Equipment

Canon EOS D30

DLC photography - D30 tips
DLC photography - Chuck Westfall's tips
Fred Miranda - D30 FAQ
Reviews

Dpreview
Luminous Landscape 1
Luminous Landscape 2
Rob Galbraith 1
Rob Galbraith 2
Steve's digicams
Photo.net
Digital Outback Photo
Imaging Resource

Flash photography with Canon EOS cameras
Canon EOS FAQ

Pentax

Bojidar Dimitrov's K-Mount Equipment Page
PDML - Pentax-Discuss Mailing List

Lenses

Van Walree Photography - Optics (many good articles)
Canon TS-E lenses

Tilt and shift lenses (regarding all TS-E lenses)
TS-E 45/2.8 on the-digital-picrure.com
TS-E 24/3.5 on the-digital-picrure.com
TS-E 90/2.8 on the-digital-picrure.com
Sports with TS-E lenses by Vincent Laforet for the NY Times
Fred Miranda - how to correct CA when shift used
Cambridge in colour - Shift
Cambridge in colour - Tilt

Carl Zeiss lenses

digLloyd Zeiss ZF lenses
Zeiss.com - Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f/2.0
Zeiss.com - Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 100mm f/2.0
16-9.net - Test of 28mm lenses including CZ 28/2.8
Pebble Place - Carl Zeiss Planar T* 2/100
Pebble Place - Carl Zeiss Macro-Sonnar T* 2.8/100 N
SLR Lens Review - Contax Sonnar T* 2.8/135mm C/Y
SLR Lens Review - Contax Sonnar T* 2.8/85mm C/Y
SLR Lens Review - Contax Planar T* 1.7/50mm C/Y
Pebble Place - Contax Sonnar T* 2.8/135mm C/Y
Some example pictures of Zeiss lenses
pinciuc.com - samples from various lenses

Nikon PC-Nikkor lenses

16-9.net - Test of 35mm shift lenses
mir.com.my - PC-Nikkor 28mm f/3.5
mir.com.my - PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8

Adapters

Pebble Place - C/Y adapters

Cambridge in colour - Understanding camera lenses
Photo.net - Lens tutorial

Canon EOS 20D

Dpreview 20D review
Luminous Landscape part 1
Luminous Landscape part 2
Luminous Landscape field test
Photo.net review

Canon EOS 1D Mark III

The-Digital-Picture.com
Imaging Resource
Ken Rockwell
Rob Galbraith
Photography-on-the.net

Theory

Digital Outback photo - "Image Sensor Size and Field of View" (good chart of common sensor sizes)
Digital Outback photo - "Pixel size"
Photo.net Effects of the physical size of digican sensors on performance by Bob Atkins
Focal length compression explained

Nature

Finland

Retkikartta
Luontoon.fi
Kansalaisen Karttapaikka

Coppice forest near Tampere / Lehdot Tampereen lähellä

Pälkäne, Äimälän lehtoalue
Akaa, Alhonlahden rantalehto
Hämeenkyrö, Vastajärvenojanlehto
Hämeenkyrö, Sasin purolehdot
Kangasala, Hepomäki-Kalkunvuori
Pälkäne, Hausalon lehmuslehto
Pälkäne, Sarkasen harjulehto
Tampere, Iso-Kuhmon lehto
Ylöjärvi, Valkeenkiven lehto
Tampere, Myllypuro 1
Tampere, Myllypuro 2
Pirkanmaan lehdot (miljo.fi)
Valkeakoski, Pappilan tervaleppäkorpi
Valkeakoski, Sydänniemen pähkinälehto
Valkeakoski, Mälkiäisen lehto
Valkeakoski, Vainoniemen lehto
Valkeakoski, Tunturivuoren lehto

Cliffs near Tampere / Kalliota Tampereen lähellä

Orivesi, Eräpyhä
Orivesi, Vuorijärvi
Tampere, polku Kintulammilta Pulesjärven suojelualueelle
Nokia, Huuhkajanvuori ja Kaakkurijärvet
Valkeakoski, Jylhänniemi ja Lapinraunio
Urjala, Kormuntinvuori
Nokia, Peltokankaanvuori
Orivesi, Sonsarinvuori-Raiskionvuori
Orivesi, Huppionvuori
Orivesi, HArjunvuori
Tampere, Neevuori
Tampere, Ahvenvuori-Helaavuoru-Syvälahdenvuoret
Tampere, Peräjärvi - Mustalaisvuori

Pirkanmaa

Luonnonsuojelu Valkeakosken alueella
Luonnonsuojelu - Kangasala
Luonnonsuojelu - Tampere
Luonnonsuojelu - Ylöjärvi
Luontokohteita - Nokia
Pälkäneen suojeluohjelma- ja Natura-alueet
Luonnonsuojelualueet - Orivesi
Luonnonsuojelu Lempäälässä
Pirkanmaan Virkistysalueyhdistys

Panoramic photography

Panotools Wiki (also lot of information which is not Panotools specific)
Panoramic heads

Nodal Ninja
Really Right Stuff
Virtual Reality Photography
360rage - Panorama hardware and heads

Cambridge in colour - Digital panoramas: part 1
Cambridge in colour - Digital panoramas: part 2
Cambridge in colour - Digital panoramas: Projections
Panoguide: the guide to panoramas and panoramic photography
Software

CubicConverter (QTVR)
PTgui
AutoPano Pro
Panoramafactory
PTmac
Hugin

Panomundo QVTR howto

Infrared

Ever wondered about IR photography (Infra Red)

Pictures of Carl Zeiss Makro-Planar T* 2/100 ZF

Lens extends when focused

Distance from EOS lens mount (including adapter) to end of the hood is 145mm at infinity and 199mm at 1:2.

Front/side projection

Made in Japan, unfortunately...

Aperture ring in tight place

As you can see from photo aperture ring is not easiest to access, at least with gloves on freezing temperatures.